[COMPLETED]
[WATTYS 2022 WINNER]
James Quinn can't die. Actually... that's not true. He's died many times - somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 - only to be reborn as himself to live his life over again.
For millennia, he's had to endure this c...
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June 23, 2002 [20]
Martha shaded the gray with purple. What had begun as random streaks of black and gray paint had evolved into a face. As in Paris, it was her mother's, she'd decided. The incidental smudges became her downtrodden features as Martha slanted a jawline to frame them.
"That's really pretty, Mommy," Serafina said, standing next to Martha and in front of her own easel.
"You think?"
"Uh-huh. It looks like a rain cloud. And our farmers sure could use some rain."
Martha regarded the painting and considered her daughter's interpretation. Unburdened with generational baggage, she'd assumed it was natural, honest, alive and full of possibility. Martha's burden was on clear display, however. Somewhere in her subconscious, her mother's unblinking gaze still held real estate.
She'd yet to make a second attempt to reach her mother in the family portrait. Perhaps she would in another life. Perhaps not. Regardless, that was in the future and her mother, the past and so neither held relevance in Martha's conscious mind. Serafina had made sure of that.
Because everything with this girl was present tense. Momentary joys were miracles; momentary obstacles, disasters. Most importantly, nearly everything was new to her – her first taste of ice cream, the first time a fluffy dog licked her face, her first trip to the doctor's office – and the shots... oh, the look of betrayal she gave us. It had been so long since life had felt new to Martha and James that their daughter's joie de vivre was like the aforementioned rainstorm following a century of drought.
"Thank you, sweetie. Yours is quite beautiful," she said, pointing at Serafina's easel. "Is that a ladybug?"
"Uh-huh," Serafina said as she filled in one of the giant black circles on the insect's wings. "A daddy ladybug. A daddy ladybug on the way to the grocery store."
"Oh, a daddy ladybug?"
Because of course a daddy ladybug...
Maybe it was because she'd briefly wished for a boy back when she was first pregnant. Maybe she'd been projecting anxiety toward her own mother onto her daughter, thereby pushing her away. Or maybe was it random; a flip of the coin. Whatever the reason, Serafina was a daddy's girl, through and through, no doubt about it.
Presently, she began to add high arching antennae to the daddy ladybug. Martha decided to play with her daughter's interpretation of her mess of gray by adding hints of sunlight and vegetation. She left the easels for the corner of their converted three car garage where the paint cabinet stood.
After the fall, while Martha was still recovering in the hospital, James had traveled back to their cabin to retrieve their things, leaving their Eden behind for good. When she was well enough, they'd found a three bedroom bungalow in South Pasadena, two blocks from PeePaw's house. It hadn't been easy to abandon their dream. But living off the grid, communing with nature, and any other grandiose plans they'd envisioned were ultimately trivial when compared to losing Serafina.
